Om Sweet Om

March 2012 Archives

The Huffington Post is currently featuring a debate entitled “Is Yoga a Hindu Practice?” On one side, it features Suhag Shukla, Managing Director/Legal Counsel of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), who argues that yoga is absolutely rooted in Hindu philosophy. […]

Ahh, the Choudhury’s are still at it. First, Bikram wanted to patent “his” sequence of asanas. And now, his wife, Rajashree, is out to make yoga a competitive sport. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that an organization […]

Is Asana Religious?Last week, I received an inquiry from a Christian theologian interested in showing that “the postures of Yoga” (asana) are directly tied to Hinduism and thus, cannot be easily incorporated into daily life by Christians. While the origin of yoga is undoubtedly tied to the Hindu sacred texts, th

India's Holy Men by Joey L.I just ran across these stunning images of Holy Men by photographer Joey L. The initial set of images are of Indian sadhus living in the holy city of Varanasi...and they are absolutely breathtaking.
http://www.joeyl.com/personal-galleries/holy-men-2/

The Idea of a Constructed Hindu IdentityThe following piece was written by my friend Raman Khanna, who is also a member of the Hindu American Foundation's Executive Council.
“Hinduism was invented recently.”
“The word Hindu is problematic.”
“It’s not accurate to speak of Hinduism, only Hinduisms.”
More than a decade has

Advice on kindnessMy yoga teacher sent me the below link to George Saunders' convocation speech at Syracuse University for the class of 2013. It's worth a read:
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?src=me&ref=general&_r=0